Quote from: Nero on November 13, 2010, 12:28:01 PM
What?? Hunter's a gorgeous female name! 

You really think so? I've never met any girls named Hunter but then again I don't meet very many people lol. Oh who's the person in the picture btw?

Honestly, I've never liked Andy, even when I was trying to do the whole "I'm a man" thing.  It always seemed to reek of backwood gas-station attendant hick to me. 

It's actually a bit ironic; when my mom first became pregnant, my dad told her "If we have a son, his name will be Andrew.  Andrew means manly, and that's how he's going to be."

I obviously wasn't there to hear this, but my mom seems to think it's a funny story to tell 800 times. 

Hi.

Well mine is & still is Noel  or no-el ,    is both male  & female that is my birth name.s  as you know its now noeleena... my 2nd was edward  now edwina,,   & all legal    my other 2  names are  male .

i will allways be noel to some friends & thats cool.

...noeleena...

Ryan is a pretty neutral name.

What I'm doing is this:

Anyone who knows me before transition can call me Ryan. My friends, my family, all those peeps. They know this part of me- this transition from Boy to Girl and everything it entails.

Everyone after will know me as Alia. Alia represents femininity, as well as the knife that cuts to kill my former shield that hid me from the world. Alia gives me the power to assert myself as feminine. It's also significantly more clearly gendered, so it will aid in passing. It also starts great conversation with fellow Dune nerds.

When people get close enough, they'll meet my friends and family and say "why do they call you Ryan, Alia?"

At which point its time to make an important decision in regards to the future of my friendship with this person.

Two names serve as a gateway by which I'll keep out those that don't belong.

Legally, my name will be Alia Ryan (insert last name). Which is much more neutral than Ryan William (Insert last name).

OK I'm out! three days of sport climbing in the freezing F***ing cold desert, no shaving and gross man beardness. Woot! Hooray for green toenails and vestiges of my girliness!

Well technically my name wasn't gender neutral, but I never used it anyway and introduced myself as Jamie, so I could have kept it as a first name...in the end however I elected to keep it as a middle name because having a new name and keeping my old given name felt like i was saying that I'm still me, regardless of the journey I'm going through.

From a foreigner's perspective, Ryan, Hunter and Andy are all pretty male-exclusive name... But maybe I just think this because of TV characters.

Quote from: A on November 14, 2010, 07:27:34 PM
From a foreigner's perspective, Ryan, Hunter and Andy are all pretty male-exclusive name... But maybe I just think this because of TV characters.

I don't know about Ryan and Hunter, but I know a number of girls named Andrea who shorten it to Andy. 

My name isn't really gender neutral, it's more of the kind that has a male and female version: Emmanuel. The funny thing with this name is that it's seldom written correctly from the first time. I think that is largely due to the soft porn movies from the 80ies) with a similar name (Emmanuelle 1 through 7 ). At the same time people find the name too long so every shortens it. At work they call me Emma or E, at home they call me Eve, my cousins call me Nel and my friends call me Pookey. Oh and in Junior High (back in the eighties) they called me 8... (which is funny now, but not back then).

Conclusion: I'm keeping my name, I'm simply making it feminine (Emmanuelle) and adding Marie in front of it, but that's a whole different story

Emma

This is interesting. Here, we shorten Emmanuel(le) as Manu.

I would not have changed my name if it had been a gender nuetral one.
I do not mind my birth name. It is a string of letters just like any other, no big deal.
However society makes a big deal of gender inapropriate names so I figured it just makes sense to have it changed.
Luckily for me I had a female name I have ussed since early childhood for when I was en femme. Cynthia has been with me almost as long as <male name>. Just hiden away and kept secret.

Quote from: A on November 20, 2010, 11:30:12 AM
This is interesting. Here, we shorten Emmanuel(le) as Manu.

Same here, and it's what my first wife used to call me. However, I never really liked the sound of it. So I encourage people to either use my name as it is or be differently creative about it 

Love,
Emma

Probably not. Getting my name legally changed was so much of a hassle so I wouldn't want to deal with the process if it was avoidable.  I just got a name change certificate in the mail last week, after a 3 month wait, in which they sent my paperwork back once, asking me to sign a form stating that I am indeed transgendered (even though such form was not mentioned or made available on the registrar office website.). And, as a final insult, the envelope that held the certificate was addressed to my name of birth. Not the easiest process in the world, though the end result was worth it.

I have so many nicknames my real name is almost irrelevant, but I'm adorable enough that people tend to automatically default to a gender-neutral version of it anyway.